Кейт Новак - Azure Bonds

Evil climbed the hill in many bodies. Weak and strong spirits mingled. A double file of cloaked and hooded men and women entered the circle of stone fangs. They split their ranks upon stepping into the circle and surrounded him. Their dress marked them as followers of Moander and their leader bore the faceless mask common to evil masters, even in the saurial’s world.

But the worshipers handled their long robes clumsily and their voices faltered as they sang, occasionally missing notes or forgetting the cadence, only to pick it up again several beats later. Could they be imposters? Dragonbait wondered. They all had the feel of the assassins Cassana worked with—The Fire Knives.

When the pseudo-worshipers of Moander, numbering two dozen, had formed a circle about the perimeter of the hilltop, four figures in gaudy array stepped into their midst.

First came the small, grinning form of Phalse. He was all in blue—a sickening blue of decaying meat. His blue-on-blue-on-blue eyes shone with anticipation. Dragonbait hissed, and Phalse smirked. Phalse had found the saurial roaming the plane of Tarterus stalking demons. The pseudo-halfling had captured the paladin and brought him to this plane so he could be slain to enslave another.

Zrie Prakis entered second, decked in red robes the color of blood, trimmed with dirty, bone-white edgings. He bore his staff of power like a ceremonial weapon, ready to strike down any who failed to obey him. His movements were filled with energy, though his atrophied muscles stretched and popped over his bones.

The lich’s liveliness was due to the proximity of his mistress, Cassana, who strode in behind him. She was dressed in a strapless gown of shimmering green, slit up the side. In her hands she turned the small, slender wand she used to control her pets. She had a wicked, cruel smile.

Last of all, Alias entered the circle, moving more like the undead that Prakis was than a living being. The puppet’s body was under control of her mistress. She was garbed in leathers split up the sides, the bare flesh cross-tied with thongs which looped about silver button-hooks. Long, shiny black boots with incredibly high heels covered her feet and calves. She wore an ornate girdle at her waist, with the skull of some creature etched in silver at the front. She had been given a chain shirt split open at the middle, baring the flesh between her breasts and offering any sword an easy target. Shoulder plates of lacquered black, a red velvet cape, and a collar of black and silver completed the showy, but impractical, ensemble.

In her hands she gripped Dragonbait’s diamond-headed sword so tightly her knuckles were white. Her face was drawn into a tight mask, the lines and vessels of her neck standing out. Along her sword arm, the runes glowed with a hellish light, creating a false blue dawn around her.

Dragonbait pulled at his metallic bonds, trying not to give his captors the pleasure of seeing him thrash. The wires were too well mounted to give way, though, and his wrists grew wet with blood.

Zrie Prakis stood at one end of the stone, near Dragonbait’s head, and Phalse stood at the lizard’s feet. Cassana took one side, and Alias, fighting the pull of the runes, lurched to a position directly across from her. The saurial understood all that was to happen. They would use Hill Cleaver, his own sword, to slay him. If only he’d been able to reach the blade back at The Rising Raven, he could have negated all of Cassana’s magic and turned the tide of the battle. Now the blade would shatter upon tasting his innocent blood and two good things would be destroyed in a single blow. Three, counting Alias. If all of this was not evil enough, Cassana was forcing Alias to perform the deed. It was completely unnecessary to the ritual. The witch did it only to bring pain and grief to her puppet.

Dragonbait looked deep into Cassana’s eyes. She would permit no flower to grow without her permission, and before Alias could bloom, the sorceress would encase her in amber. A perverse curiosity prompted him to use his shen sight on her before he died, just to know what such evil looked like. The heat of her soul caused him to flinch. Within was a black wall riddled with flaming red cracks. Hatred burned deep in her and crackled between her, Zrie Prakis, and Phalse. The lich, like a void, sucked up emotions, and beside Cassana he was a vortex of hatred and fear. Phalse glowed like a city put to the torch by invaders. His maliciousness ran the gamut of yellow greed, red hatred, and a sickly green jealousy.

Cassana grinned, as if she guessed what the saurial was doing. She looked at the sky behind Alias. The sun had almost cleared the horizon. The tops of the sharp, tooth-shaped plinths looked as if they had bitten into something bloody.

The sorceress motioned to Phalse, who turned his back on Dragonbait. The small servant motioned with his hands in an arcane fashion that seemed to deny the existence of bones in his arms. They swayed back and forth like snakes. Beyond him, a pinprick of light appeared, then grew. It began as a sphere of multicolored magical force, then flattened, turning into a swirling pattern of silver and red.

Dragonbait had seen this gate before. It was the passage to the Citadel of White Exile, where he and Alias had been branded. Now, that passage had to be opened again to draw power from the domain of Phalse’s master. With it, they would seal control over Alias at the moment of Dragonbait’s death.

Dragonbait finally looked up at Alias; he did not want to grieve her, but he could not help himself. Their eyes locked like pieces in a magical puzzle. Her eyes were red-rimmed from exhaustion and evaporated tears. He used his shen sight. If he was going to die, he wanted to do so with his eyes fixed on the brilliant blue of her soul.

Her spirit’s glow was as slender as the flame from a single candle. It flickered like a living sapphire. Yet on all sides rose a tide of darkness, crackling with energy, forcing itself upward to smother the flame. The flame blazed for a moment, but the forces surrounding it rose as well.

The chanting increased as Phalse worked his spells to control the spinning disk that reached between the planes. The first tendrils of dawn caught Alias’s hair from behind and set it on fire, a glory of bright red against the newborn sky. “Prepare to sacrifice the innocent!” the sorceress bellowed. “Raise the blade!”

Alias hesitated and Dragonbait saw the candle’s flame burn hotter. Cassana made a pass with her wand, and the sapphire flame dimmed as if a smoked glass chimney had been dropped over it. Alias raised her hands, clasping Hill Cleaver’s hilt, the blade pointed down at the saurial’s chest. His own sigils were now answering the dark siren call of their masters, and Dragonbait thought his hearts would burst from the strain.

Through eye contact, he tried to plead with the swordswoman to fight, to strengthen her will. He wished desperately to add his own inner strength to hers and fight off the darkness. However, while his skill allowed him to see her spirit, he could not encourage it. Silently he cursed his inability to communicate with her.

Blue sparks arced between the sigils on his chest, and the runes on Alias’s arm responded in kind. The Abomination had told her that she drew strength from him, but Dragonbait had not discovered how. Maybe, the saurial suddenly realized, he had denied the evil brands for too long. Perhaps they could yet be turned to good.

Deliberately, he channeled his will through the runes, trying to force the light to arc higher. The sparks showered upward like water in a fountain, their display mirrored on Alias’s arm. Finally, sparks touched and interwove, bridging the gap between sacrificer and sacrifice.

Cassana’s voice sounded far off as she shouted, “Seal the pact!” The darkness in Alias rose like bile, and the candle flame of her spirit faltered. Then, feeding at last on the saurial’s own, her flame strengthened and grew in intensity.